So to start with I’m making a chatroom. I’m calling the project MyFirstChatroom since it kind of is, and it’s simple.
There’ll be an AJAX/JQuery View, a PHP Script Controller and Model covering a MySQL Database. For this version of the chatroom I’ll be recording a log of the last, let’s say two hundred things said on the chatroom. When I convert it to a MUCK I’ll probably just fill the user’s view with whatever is posted in their vicinity instead, so that they can carry it with them room to room.
I’ve hit my first problem with the design. I’ll be keeping a database of previous paragraphs up to two hundred. But, as they pass that and are deleted, the id of the stored paragraphs will keep going up, eventually running out. So, I’ll have to set it up to recycle ids after it gets to two hundred.
Hmm… If I’m going to be saving chat lines, that’ll be seperate from the chatroom itself, and eventually the users. So, I’ll have to make a model for chat paragraphs as well.
The way I’m thinking about it now, I’m pretty sure I’m violating database rules. Maybe 1st Normal Form…
I talked about it with my brother some, and he thinks I should be good to just make the model an array of entries representing the one table. So I’ll give that a go.